The Alpha's Mate has already Killed HIm

Lyra

Dead men make terrible liars.

That's why I'm standing in the ice cellar under Blackspire Keep at midnight, bare-handed, with my palm flat against a corpse's chest and a very good chance of being hanged for it.

Tomas Reed. Twenty-four. Draven Guard. Found dead in his bunk yesterday morning. Cause of death: sudden heart failure.

Healthy wolves don't get heart failure. His sister told me that yesterday, crying so hard she couldn't finish the sentence. Then she handed me eight silver crowns.

I don't do this for free. But I would have done it for nothing.

"Come on, Tomas," I whisper. "Tell me who."

Death Seers are illegal in all five territories. People think we don't just see death, we cause it. Touching a corpse is a hanging offense. So is being what I am.

So officially, I'm a temple mortician's assistant. Three shifts a week.

Unofficially, I'm the best murder investigator nobody has ever heard of.

The cellar is freezing. My breath fogs. My fingertips go numb against his cold skin, and then the world drops out from under me.

Click.

I'm inside Tomas.

That's how it works. Every dead wolf leaves one final memory behind, the last thing they saw before the lights went out, and I fall right into it. A dim corridor. A guttering torch. His pulse is hammering, and his fear is a taste in my mouth.

A voice whispers, close to his ear. "It'll only hurt for a moment."

A hand reaches toward his face.

I look for the killer. That's the whole point. But where a face should be, there's only a smear of black, like someone dragged a thumb through wet ink.

I rip my hand away and stumble back, gasping.

That's wrong.

Memories don't have holes. I've read two hundred and six last memories, and every single one was whole. Awful, bloody, but whole.

Somebody cut this one open.

"That's not possible," I whisper.

"Step away from the body."

Ice slides down my spine. The voice is low and calm and dangerous the way a drawn bow is dangerous.

I turn around.

The cellar door stands open. Six guards with drawn swords fill the stairwell, and in front of them is one man.

He's tall. Black coat, silver signet, dark hair cropped close. His eyes are the flat, hard color of a winter sky, and they're fixed on my bare hands.

I know exactly who he is. Everyone does.

Alpha Cassian Draven. The most powerful wolf in the five territories. The man who signed the law that makes my existence a crime.

Oh, this is going to be bad.

"Name," he says.

"Lyra. I'm the mortician's assistant."

"Liar." He doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't have to. "You're bare-handed on a dead soldier of mine, in the middle of the night."

"I was praying."

"With your hands on his chest."

"I'm a very devout person."

Nobody laughs. Not even a twitch. Two of the guards shift their grip on their swords.

"Sarcasm," Cassian says. "Is that how you plan to explain a Death Seer in my keep?"

My mouth goes dry. He knows what I am. Of course he does.

I could run. There's a grate in the corner that leads to the drainage tunnels. I've mapped it. I could make it.

I take one step toward it.

He's across the room before I can blink.

His hand closes around my wrist.

My bare wrist.

I never touch the living. Never. My gloves stay on, my sleeves stay down, and I flinch away from strangers on crowded streets. Because I've only ever read the dead.

Nobody knows what happens when I touch a living wolf.

Now I do.

The world goes white.

Click.

I'm standing in a burning city.

Smoke chokes me. Towers are collapsing. Somewhere, people are screaming. It's hot. It's so hot, and the air stinks of ash and blood.

Blood is pouring down my chest.

My chest. But it isn't mine. My hands are bigger. My heartbeat is slower, dying, and I understand a second too late that I'm not in my own body.

I'm in his.

I'm seeing Cassian Draven's final memory.

But he's alive. He's right here, gripping my wrist. This can't be a memory. It hasn't happened.

The smoke thins.

A woman stands in front of him with a silver blade in her hand.

Dark hair. Black soot on her cheeks. Blood to her elbows.

She has my face.

It's me.

I'm holding the knife. It's slick and red, and my hands are shaking, and I'm looking at myself through his eyes with an expression I've never worn in my life. Not rage. Not triumph.

Horror.

"Why did you do this, Lyra?" Cassian whispers.

Then his knees give out, and everything goes black.

I come back to my body with a scream stuck in my throat.

The cellar. The cold. His hand is still on my wrist, and he's staring at me like he's been struck.

His eyes have gone gold.

Not a glow. A flood. The gray is gone, drowned in molten light, and the tendons in his neck are standing out like cords. He's breathing hard. His grip is trembling.

"Mate," he says.

It comes out rough, like it was ripped from him. Like he didn't choose to say it.

I yank my arm free so fast I almost fall.

"No," I say. "No. Absolutely not."

"You felt it."

"I felt nothing."

"You saw something." His gaze pins me. Whatever the wolf has done to his voice, the man underneath is still icy. "Your face changed. What did you see?"

I can't tell him.

I saw you die.

I saw me kill you.

I open my mouth and nothing comes out.

"Alpha."

A woman steps through the ring of guards, and the room seems to lean toward her. She's pale and elegant, in a long silver-gray gown. She looks about forty. Her eyes are an odd, cloudy blue. I recognize her from the notice boards.

Seraphine Vale. The Oracle Queen. The woman who protects all five territories by predicting disasters.

"I told you," she says quietly. "I warned you, months ago. Your mate would come. And she would bring your death."

Cassian doesn't look at her. He doesn't look away from me.

"Confirm it."

"The signs are unmistakable." Her voice is gentle. Grieved. "The woman standing before you is the woman who will kill you, Alpha."

The whole cellar goes quiet.

I laugh. I can't help it. It's a thin, terrible little sound. "I'm a funeral attendant. I can't even pick a lock without cutting myself."

"You're a Death Seer," Cassian says. "That is enough."

"Cassian —"

"Take her."

The guards move. Hands grab my arms, my shoulders. Cold iron cuffs bite into my wrists. I fight, I kick, I get one guard in the shin. It doesn't matter.

Cassian stands dead still while they haul me toward the stairs. His fists are clenched. His jaw is tight. He looks like a man holding a storm in his ribs, and for one insane second I think I see something in his face that isn't anger.

It looks a lot like fear.

"What are the charges?" I yell over my shoulder. "You can't just — what are the charges?"

"Unlawful sorcery," he says. "Trespass."

He pauses.

"And the murder of an Alpha."

"That hasn't happened!"

"Yet," says Seraphine.

She's beside me suddenly, matching the guards' pace, lifting a slender hand toward my face. Her cloudy eyes are kind. That's the last thing I notice, how kind they are.

"Sleep, little Seer," she murmurs, and my own name sounds like a lullaby in her mouth.

Then the dark closes over me like water.

Cold.

That's the first thing I feel. Cold stone against my cheek. Cold air in my lungs.

The second thing is the smell. Iron. Wet, coppery, sharp.

I push myself up. My head swims. I'm in a cell, a real one, with a single high window and a rusted door, and pale gray dawn is leaking through the bars.

I look down at my hands.

They're red.

Not pink, not smudged. Red, to the wrist, sticky and drying, crusted under my nails. Fresh enough that my fingers stick together when I flex them.

There's no wound. Nothing hurts. It isn't mine.

I scramble backward until my spine hits the wall.

"No," I whisper. "No, no, no."

The last thing I remember is Seraphine's hand and the word sleep. I don't remember walking here. I don't remember being chained. I don't remember touching anyone.

I've read two hundred and six last memories in my life, and every one of them belonged to somebody else.

Now I'm staring at blood on my own hands, and I have no idea whose it is, or what I did.

And for the first time in my life, the Death Seer is the one missing a memory.